


Mirror

by worstcommander



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-07 00:22:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worstcommander/pseuds/worstcommander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for the ME Kink Meme.</p>
<p>Kaidan Alenko takes a look back at his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror

Of course it would be Garrus who catches them, frantically wrestling with buttons and straps in the crew lounge. His mandibles twitch in irritation as he tucks a datapad under his arm.

"Spirits, what's the point of private quarters if neither of you use them?"

They stammer in concert, faces reddening. Garrus shakes his head. "At least lock the damn door." It slides shut on his retreat and the access panel flashes red, a pointed afterthought.

Shepard's hand withdraws from under the waistband of his uniform pants and rests lightly on his stomach. Her chest is heaving, shirt hiked up above her bra, and he can see the darkness of her nipple through the thin cloth, wet from his mouth. She's reaffixed her Commander Face, but as she meets his eyes a grin breaks through, ruining the effect.

"Well, he's got a point. Your place or mine?"

* * *

The Reapers are dead and he can't stop crying.

She's bruised and broken in his arms, and his tears make watery streaks as they mix with the blood on her face. Screams and celebrations surround him, but he can only stare down at her, numbly registering as his vision blurs and clears with each blink.

She has to lean up to his ear and shout before he notices she's trying to escape his embrace. Shepard's joyful laugh is infectious and he joins her, through the sobs tightening his chest.

"I'm glad to see you too, but get off!"

She's illuminated by the setting sun, transformed into living flame as she raises her arms and crows her defiance over the smoking hulk of the last living Reaper. On a thousand ships, a thousand planets, in the throats of a thousand soldiers staring up at her, Shepard's triumphant cheer is echoed.

* * *

"I didn't know they had a monument," she says quietly. He rests his hand at the small of her back as they walk down the path, gravel crunching softly underfoot.

"It's good, she... Williams was a good woman. A good soldier." She turns her face into the warm evening breeze for a long moment, her expression unreadable.

"She was a good friend."

It feels right to kiss her then, and so he does. He always loves the instant of acceptance, when Shepard releases her subtle, ever-present composure and melts into his arms. She deepens the kiss and he doesn't resist as she pulls him by the hand with a smile, off the path and into the shadow of a spreading tree, massive and old.

They make love there, on the grass of Eden Prime. He pushes her skirt up her thighs as she moves above him, slowly and purposefully, sliding down as he angles upward, point and counterpoint. They've always moved in sync like this, a lifetime lived under heavy fire, attacking and defending without needing words.

The words he thinks are _I love you more than my own life_ , the ones he speaks are, "Will you marry me?"

* * *

"It's uncomfortable." Shepard fusses with the collar of her dress blues for the fiftieth time that morning, worrying a finger around the inner edge.

"It's appropriate." He grins at her, standing at attention in his place at her side. "Besides," he leans in, his lips brushing her ear as he lowers his voice, "you'll be out of it soon enough."

She raises an appraising eyebrow at his tone and a wicked smile tugs at the corner of her mouth.

"Couldn't we just skip to that part? I hate these things."

" _Shepard_."

"Fine, fine." She settles back into position with a few more tugs at the hem of her jacket, muttering under her breath. He thinks that for once, the mission might be going as planned.

The music swells and it's time. Just as the doors open onto the cheering crowd, Shepard rises on her toes, steadying herself on his arm to whisper in his ear.

" _I'm pregnant_."

* * *

"Will it be okay?" Wide brown eyes stare up at him in worry. He scrubs a hand over his face, the stubble there rasping painfully. He hasn't shaved and his eyes are sore, red-rimmed from lack of sleep. The tiredness seeps through his bones and settles heavily, and he thinks absently that the last time he was this worn out, he'd napped against a blown out wall in full armor until Shepard had kicked him awake.

He's a million miles away now, under a harsh florescent light in a sterile hospital corridor. Chairs line the blank walls but he suspects he'd get even less sleep, folded into one of them. He crouches down, clasping a small hand in his own.

"Mommy's fine. Do you want to go see her?"

Shepard's awake, her smile radiant as he lifts their son onto the hospital bed beside her. She wraps an arm around him as she pulls him closer, suffering tiny elbows and knees as he squirms for a better view.

"She's all red," he pronounces gravely, "but I like her." He settles back into Shepard's side as their newborn daughter sleeps on.

* * *

"-and THEN Marco said he found a frog but we looked in the puddle and we couldn't find it and Daddy said that maybe the frog went home and frogs live in ponds so if we go to the pond later that could be a frog's house and-"

Shepard smiles tiredly on the vidscreen as her daughter rambles on without pause. It's a familiar trial, and as she takes a deep breath to continue her story, he swoops in to intercept.

"Mommy has to go soon, it's time to say goodnight." The little girl nods and turns back to the screen, kissing her thumb and pressing it to the image where Shepard's thumb already waits.

"Goodnight, Mommy."

When she leaves the room he slumps into the chair, running a hand through his graying hair.

"They miss you. Want to know when you're coming home." She sighs, the tightness around her eyes evident even in the wavering image. The Council pushes her hard and he wishes, not for the first time, that she'd decide she'd given the galaxy enough of herself. She's a face on the screen most nights, and he wants her here, tucking in their children with him and falling asleep in his arms.

"I'm following a couple leads, if they pan out... I'll get leave. Tell them not to call. We can go away for awhile." He wonders whether it's a lie for his sake, or for hers.

He kisses his thumb, raises it to the screen as she mirrors him.

"Come home safe, Shepard."

* * *

She's standing in front of the mirror, gooseflesh rising in the morning cold. Hands smoothing over skin beginning to loosen, orderly scars crisscrossing where she'll always bear the marks of her rebirth, puckered scars spreading elsewhere from the life she built afterwards. Always methodical, Shepard, as she pinches at her stomach, weighs a breast in one hand, tosses her head to watch the sway of wispy white hair. He watches from the bed, reminded of how she used to check her armor this way, each seal and join inspected for weakness or flaw.

She's taken off her armor but she's never stopped wearing it.

He rises to join her at the mirror, standing behind her as he snakes his arms around her waist. He hasn't hefted a gun in years but his arms are still strong, as ready to protect her now as they were on the first day they met. He rocks her gently back against him, feels that moment of stiffness before she relents.

"I never would have imagined this life I've had, messed up kid that I was." He rests his head in the crook of her neck. "I owe a lot of that to you."

She meets his eyes in their reflection.

"It's been an honor, Kaidan."

She brings her thumb to her lips at a dingy public terminal on Omega. "I'll try, Kaidan."

She rests her cheek in the cloud of her son's curly brown hair and meets Kaidan's eyes, mouthing I love you over his small head.

She pats his arm and guides him down the aisle towards the officiate as he reels with the shock of her announcement.

She cries out her climax above him, the moon silvering her hair as she throws her head back and he follows her, helpless against the perfection of this moment.

She turns with a grin and his breath stops at the sight of his warrior goddess, smudged with the dirt and grime of the battlefield but more beautiful than he's ever seen her before.

She stills for a moment, her face pensive. "I love you, Kaidan, you know that? I never stopped." He carries her across the threshold of her cabin.

She hovers above him, her face stricken as she attempts to stem the flow of blood from his wound. It's no use, she shot too well, too quickly for him to throw up a barrier.

"Why didn't you stand down?" Her fingers are slick with his blood but he still remembers kissing them.

"Man... couldn't defend himself."

He tries to tell her he's sorry, that he loves her, that he forgives her, but all he manages is a cough, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. She's speaking but he can barely hear her, she's far away, on the other side of that wavering vidscreen. He kisses his thumb and presses it to her lips.

_It's been an honor._

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for the ME Kink Meme:  
> (original: http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/6609.html?thread=28290769t28290769)
> 
> "So, there's this bit in Doctor Who where the Doctor has this vision of all the days he would have had with a person he loved if he chose a particular road. Namely growing old with her, having a bunch of kids and then dying by her side, happy and content with life. But of course, he chooses the opposite path that saves more people.
> 
> I'd like to see one of the characters having a moment like this, preferrably right before they die.
> 
> Maybe it's Ashley or Kaidan, dreaming about the days they would have had with the other one or with Shepard before the nuke goes off.
> 
> Maybe it's Shepard in the Normandy crash. Maybe it's during the final choice on the Citadel. Either way is fine, anons, just make it heartbreaking."


End file.
